Author: ryan

Categories
Movies

Avatar

After two failed attempts (sold out shows), Kelly and I finally got to see Avatar last night. We went out to a small, independent theater in Northeast Portland (Roseway Theater) where it was playing in 3D, and had the bonus of being cheaper than the big chains ($9 each, as opposed to $13.50).

In short, I enjoyed the film a lot. Sure, some of the dialog was cheesy (a couple lines were downright lame), and the story wasn’t groundbreaking, but I was immersed in the world for the full 2 hours 40 minutes, and the CG was good enough that it wasn’t distracting, even the Na’vi (the blue aliens) were. The 3D in the theater helped a lot too. It’s a fun movie. Go see it big, and in 3D.

After getting home I was so curious on how it was pulled off, so I found this short video. Pretty interesting stuff. Actors were motion captured (body and face) in a big white empty room, sometimes seeing live rough digital renderings of the Avatar world while ‘filming’. Once the actors were finished, James Cameron could wander around with a virtual camera (which plays back the rough digital render), which allowed him to record at whatever angles, motion, or distance he wanted. Pretty cool technology. Spoiler warning: If ya haven’t seen the movie, you might want to avoid the video.

Categories
Entertainment Humor Movies

Laugh it up, fuzzball

Kelly forwarded this gem my way: Star Wars Meets Facebook.

Starbook

Categories
Beer Food Music Travel Work

OMG it’s 2010

OK, so, I gave up for the past 3 months. Guess I lost the love. It’s not that I don’t love the 3 or 4 of you who actually read my blog, but I just lost the love for spewing out nonsense for no particular reason. It affected my Twitter-ing too. I just felt no need for it. I could barely keep up with consuming everything coming my way (outside of my work-related duties), and just didn’t care to add the burden to myself or anyone else.

But I’m back, baby. (for now)

Here’s a recap since my last post (when I was happily relaxed on the Big Island).

At the end of October I had a birthday, and I turned 25 (again), and had the good fortune of having friends and family over to celebrate. I had a great time (I think, can’t quite remember since it was so long ago). Looking at the photographic evidence there was a lot of time spent bowling on the Wii, drinking beers, and eating fondu and other delicious treats that Kelly (and others) had made. Again, let me reiterate, I turned 25. Not 35. Nosirree. Nope.

Around mid-November, my company sent the Engineering team down to Napa Valley and San Francisco for a day/night to celebrate the latest release of our software. Had a fun time, despite the fact that I don’t have any love for wine. However, some awesome coworkers had my back, and picked up some cans of Guinness and Boddingtons for me to gulp while on the bus. Thanks guys!

Shortly after the trip to Napa, I got sick with what I can only assume to be the dreaded pigmanflu (given the fever, aches, etc). It wasn’t much fun.

Guinness is back on tap on the Kegerator (yay!).

Christmas time! Kelly and I got a nice tree this year from a daycare up the street from our house (proceeds go to help the daycare, so that makes it extra festive). Our evil cat Arthur Guinness took to climbing it repeatedly. Stupid cat. We went out to my folks place on Christmas day (as is tradition) and ate too much and opened gifts. A couple days later we went to my aunts and exchanged white elephant gifts and again ate a bit too much, and got to hang out with some of my cousins.

A couple days later I got sick again, this time with a more common cold (I blame this on Kelly, since she had it first). Sniffles, cough, bleh.

The other day, out of nowhere, it snowed a bit in PDX. And this one was unexpected and caught everyone off guard. It started around 2pm or so, and by 5pm, there was a little over 2 inches of snow in our neighborhood. Watching the news of the rush-hour traffic, the roads were a mess, especially since nobody was prepared for the conditions and loads of people got stuck trying to get in or out of town. People, including my brother, spent 8 hours or more trying to get from point A to B.

That same night, Kelly and I attended a Squirrel Nut Zippers concert in Southeast Portland (at the Aladdin Theater) which she had bought for me as a Christmas gift. We weren’t sure if we were going to bother going out or not up until an hour before the show, however I’m glad we braved the roads because it was a really fun show. We hadn’t seen them in about 5 years (since their hiatus), and they put on a really good show, putting some stylistic twists some of their old songs, and performing them all with all the fun that I expected from a SNZ show.

Tonight we celebrated New Years at our good friends T & S’s place (who fortunately live just over a mile away from us) which meant for the first time in many years we didn’t host the party. This was good primarily since both Kelly and I are still recovering from our illnesses. However we came home pretty quickly after midnight, and here I am.

Here’s to hoping that 2010 will be a better year all around than 2009.

And for some Way Back Machine-ing, here’s a quote from the Counting Crows song ‘A Long December‘ (watch the video for a younger Courteney Cox, back when she dated Adam Duritz in 1997):

And it’s been a long December and there’s reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last

Happy New Years all!

Categories
Beer Food Travel

Lava, more snorkeling, and the end

The other day (Tuesday) Kelly and I drove to the 2.25 hours to Hilo on the other side of the island so we could take our helicopter tour we’d booked. We booked it there for two reasons, one, they didn’t offer just the volcano tour from the Kona side (so it would have been a longer more expensive trip) and two, we wanted to see Hilo. It rains a lot in Hilo, and it rained most of the time we were there, but we had a nice lunch, wandered through a farmers market, and explored some of the shops for a bit. Oh, and we also went to the tasting room of the brewery at Hilo (Mehana Brewing). Pretty tasty stuff.

Then it was time for our helicopter tour. I’d never been in a helicopter before, and it was both fun and a bit scary. The tour south over the volcano flows was really cool though, and I was able to snap some shots of flowing lava. The tour was 50 minutes, and while they claimed it was both a waterfalls AND volcano tour, we were shown all of one waterfall, at a distance. It would be my only complaint about the tour. Say it’s a volcano tour and be done with it, don’t lead people to think they’ll see majestic waterfalls (plural) as well.

Afterward came time for the drive home. It was 5:30 PM as we drove away from the Hilo airport, and we decided to drive across the island instead of over the north of it (which is how we drove to Hilo earlier in the day). That meant going over Saddle Road, which we’d heard can be pretty treatcherous, but it’d save us time. Oh, it’s important to note sunset is at 6:20 PM or so, so we didn’t have much time to get over Saddle Road before dark. Long story short, it was a winding, hilly mess most of the way, with blind turns and single-lane bridges, and then we ran into rain, and then fog, and the sun had set. My knuckles were white, and my face went pale during a few sections. There was a section in the middle where it went wider and more straight, but it was very very foggy. Fortunately we made it back to the house safely, but only ended up saving 15 minutes. Oh well.

Yesterday morning we went snorkeling again at this spot about a mile south of the house, and again saw a sea turtle, and of course many brilliantly colored fish. Kelly and I also spent about 2 hours swimming in the pool beside the house, and generally relaxing our last day away. For dinner I had this mammoth burger at a place called Splasher’s Grill, and was full the rest of the night. I had a couple of beers and then I was so full and exhausted that it was time for sleep.

Today we fly home. Yesterday we cleaned the house up a bit (I want my deposit back dammit!) and started a bit of packing. I was up before dawn (which is about 8:30am PST) and made coffee. Here pretty soon I might jump in the pool one last time before getting packed and starting the long day of airports and airplanes on the way home.

And again, photos are in the gallery. Aloha!

Categories
Beer Travel

Snorkeling and swimming with dolphoins

Since my last post, Kelly and I found a really good snorkeling spot about a mile south of our rental house, we took a drive north to see the magnificent Waipi’o Valley, and this morning we went out on a boat tour and swam with dolphins. It’s been a blast, however today’s 4 hour boat tour left me with quite the sunburn. Ouch!

Now we’re relaxing near the pool, looking out at the ocean just past sunset (which is before 6:30 pm), and I’m enjoying a fine lager from Kona Brewing. Hooray!

All the photos are on the gallery (same link as previous posts).